It wasn’t a football game that broke out here in the Leafs’ 5-4 overtime loss to the Islanders. It was, however, a graphic display of what the Leafs are right now, heading into the March 5 trade deadline, and down the stretch run beyond that.

What they are is something of an unbalanced side. A side that can seemingly score at will, but is left fighting its own weaknesses on defence.

The result has been favourable for the Leafs up to this point — they entered the game with a seven-point cushion in the race for a wild card berth, playing much of the season as a team that scored enough to overshadow its suspect defensive play.

But in their first game back from the Olympic break, the team showed there’s still a lot of work to do in the defensive zone.

In losing to an undermanned Islanders team, the Leafs gave up a pair of shorthanded goals — on the same penalty kill, no less — and blew a pair of third-period leads to erase the potency they showed on offence.

“We gave them three goals. You can’t win in the NHL giving up three goals,” said Leafs coach Randy Carlyle. “Gifts, they were all gifts. I’ve got no other words to describe the goals we gave up.”

The Leafs argued a late whistle on the Islanders’ fourth goal — to no avail — and mentioned their elastic play in their own zone was in part related to the two-week layoff during the Olympics.

But when the puck jumped over James van Riemsdyk’s stick in overtime, allowing Lubomir Visnovksy to wrist home the game winner, it completed a night of giveaways for the Leafs in their own end. At this point of the season, even with the rustiness of a layoff, that’s not a good sign.

“I think you expect it (rustiness) for a period; but in the third period, when the game’s on the line, you don’t expect that,” Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf said.

That rustiness was on display in the first period, when Michael Grabner became the first NHLer to score two shorthanded goals on the same penalty kill since Steve Sullivan in January 2001.

And the giveaways and mental breakdowns continued throughout the night.

Jake Gardiner had a tough night for giveaways, while on that overtime winner, three Leafs were around the puck in the corner — Gardiner, Morgan Rielly and Mason Raymond — but the Islanders’ Brock Nelson came away with it. The puck came out and van Riemsdyk swiped at it, but had it bounce over his stick, and on to Visnovsky, who rammed it past Jonathan Bernier at 1:55 to hand the Leafs a loss they deserved.

“Those (giveaways) were really tough, obviously we didn’t do our jobs out there,” said Phil Kessel, who, like van Riemsdyk, performed extremely well for the U.S. Olympic team in Sochi.

Indeed, Kessel and van Riemsdyk combined for five points while their line with Tyler Bozak wrapped up seven overall.

Carlyle went with 11 forwards and seven defenceman on the night, making Frazer McLaren a game-time healthy scratch and bringing in an extra defenceman to help ease the ice time load on his top four. That also allowed double shifting for Kessel, David Clarkson and Joffrey Lupul.

That arrangement worked well for a trio of games prior to the break, when the Leafs closed out on an 11-2-1 run. Nik Kulemin even centered the third line in that 11 forward-seven defenceman setup, doing extremely well in the role even though he’d never previously centered a line in the NHL.

But, now, with every team tightening their checking and turning up the intensity, the Leafs are beginning to show their depth in their bottom two lines could be suspect as the stretch run approaches.

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